When it rains, many rain frogs are found on the windows of my parents’ house in countryside. Those bright green color frogs are cute.

It was when I still lived with my parents. The morning after it rained, when I was preparing myself for work, I found a rain frog on the floor of my room. It didn’t move at all. As I got near it, I wondered it might be dead. I found its face twitching but its body was paralyzed from dryness and couldn’t move. It was about time to leave for work. However, if I left the frog as it was, it surely would have died. I couldn’t let it happen. So I put the frog on my palm and hurried to a creek beside a rice field in front of my house, talking to myself: “This frog might be a frog prince. Nah, no way!”

I put the frog on a floating wooden board in a creek, which was stuck in weeds. Water covered the frog’s body rightly. But it still didn’t move, maybe it couldn’t. “Come on, you can do it!” I told the frog, but it seemed to run out of energy to move. I really had to leave then. If hadn’t, I would have been late for work. So I left, thinking that that might be it.

I drove my car in a hurry, so I didn’t have to be late for work. Around noon, I got a text message from my family. It said that the frog had started moving again. I felt happy to know that the life of the tiny frog was saved.

It rained that night. On the way home, I reached a road surrounded by rice fields. The light illuminated countless numbers of frogs leaping on the road, which had come out in the rain. I slowed down the car.

After a while, I heard a popping sound. “Pop!” It was the sound that a frog had blown up. I braked and drooped my head with my hands on the wheel. “Ahh!” I moaned.

Disconsolate things sometimes happen in everyday life. On the day I had saved the life of one frog, I also happened to take the life of another frog.

My forelock annoys me lately. The other day, I had my hair cut by a hairstylist who I had come to know. He cut my forelock that I had grown for a long time. Being not short but not long enough, my forelock falls off when I put my hair up. Now I regret that I left the choice of my hairstyle to him, though not to the extent of regret I had at that time.

During university I spent three weeks in Riverside, a city on the west coast of America. Because there was nothing you could do without a car, I was always with my host family. One day, the elementary school son of the family was going to get a haircut. So I went to the hair salon with him and from curiosity and decided to get a haircut myself for experience. I was about twenty years old then, but looked younger. As for my fashion, I would wear T-shirts and chino pants, and my level of femininity was pretty low I guess. Because Japanese people look young, I must have looked like a child. When I told my age to the middle-aged looking hairstylist, she was so surprised that she cried “Oh, my goodness!” I suppose she couldn’t think of me as a young lady.

I left the choice of my hairstyle to the hairstylist. When she finished, she said with confidence: “This is popular style among young Americans.” However, I just looked like a mushroom and it reminded me a child of the Showa era. When I looked the boy next to me, he got a hairstyle exactly the same with me. Yeah, he is an American youth but too young! It was too late for me to scream when I realized it.

It wasn’t only my hairstyle that changed. The host mother was a really big lady, and she loved ice cream. Lots of Häagen-Dazs ice cream bars were stuffed in the refrigerator. Having the ice bars while watching TV was her pleasure, and I kept her company almost every day. When I finished one ice cream bar, she would offer another. When two week had passed, my face in the mirror looked plumper. That worried me because I thought I might have gained weight. I rushed off to her and asked, “Do you think I gained weight?” She said “No!” staunchly. How many times I asked, her answer was the same. So I told myself that it was just my imagination. Maybe I was just swollen. Then I kept eating ice cream bars. Häagen-Dazs was so good.

When I came back home, all of my family and friends widened their eyes and looked shocked. No wonder. Only in three weeks, I became plumper with a funny hairstyle. When I came to myself and realized the fact, I couldn’t help feeling embarrassed. For a while, I couldn’t go out without a cap.

It happened ages ago, so now I remember it as a funny memory. However, by writing this story, I realized that I haven’t changed at all: I’m still vulnerable to being tempted by sweets and conduct myself on a hit-or-miss basis, and often come to regret the result. That makes me feel blue this early in the morning.

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“After thinking of your age, I recommend that you should end it, there is nothing good for you”, the person said. My head drooping, I replied “I see”, without much confidence.

“This is the last chance. You already failed once so there’s no next chance. You might not be able to escape this for the rest of your life. I know some people who face trouble because they fail to end it. So, do your best.” He sounded as if he had said everything he should, and it scared me. Am I really able to end it?

I thought I already ended it a long time ago. But around this time last year, I came to know that our relationship hadn’t ended. Even though I almost had forgotten about us. Why now, why again? I felt sad. It was just that I had not realized that he was always nearby, even though I couldn’t accept that fact with pleasure. I didn’t know what to do, so I turned to a person I could trust for advice. He gave me a matter-of-fact answer: “I can’t see any problem now. So you don’t have to push yourself. Why don’t you wait and see how it goes?” The word made me feel like it was not a big matter after all, so I followed the advice.

One year passed. Our relationship didn’t bring up any issues but I have a dull pain in my stomach lately. After my friends telling me that it must be coming from stress, I started to think that this relationship might be the cause. Then I took a whim to search the name on the Internet. Wow, I found a lot of search results. Must be famous. But I couldn’t find any good opinions of him at all. It was as I expected. I knew it was no good to stay together. I shouldn’t keep this situation this anymore.

I went to see a doctor. And with his advice, I decided to break up. Farewell, pylori.

Today, I will start pylorus eradication. Because I failed once, this seems to be my last time. I cannot drink for a week. But the doctor said that even if the eradication was successful, my stomachache wouldn’t get better because its cause was not Helicobacter pylori. I should have rubbed salts on Shio Jizo. Oh, no!

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